this week in dance

TRAGIC AND COMIC HAPPENINGS: MARTHA@BAM — THE 1963 INTERVIEW AT BAM

Martha@BAM — The 1963 Interview re-creates classic conversation with Martha Graham (photo by By Peter Baiamonte)

MARTHA@BAM — THE 1963 INTERVIEW
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
October 28 – November 1, $55, 7:30
www.bam.org

On March 31, 1963, dance writer and educator Walter Terry interviewed legendary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham at the 92nd St. Y. Early in the seventy-seven-minute conversation, Terry asked Graham about her attraction to Greek history and mythology.

“There seems to be a way of going through in Greek literature and Greek history all of the anguish, all of the terror, all of the evil and arriving someplace. In other words, it is the instant that we all look for, or the catharsis, through the tragic happenings,” she responded. “Everyone in life has tragic happenings, everyone has been a Medea at some time. That doesn’t mean that you’ve killed your husband or that you’ve killed your children. But in some deep way, the impulse has been there to cast a spell — to use every ounce of your power, and that’s true of a man as well as a woman, for what one wants.”

It’s classic Graham; you can now catch a staged re-creation of the discussion in Martha@BAM — The 1963 Interview, running October 20 through November 1 at BAM’s intimate Fishman Space as part of the Next Wave Festival.

In 1996, dancer and choreographer Richard Move began the “Martha@” series, in which they portray Graham, combining text and movement. In 2003, they starred as Graham in the film portrait Ghostlight. In 2011, in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of Graham’s passing in 1991 at the age of ninety-six, Move presented Martha@ — The 1963 Interview at New York Live Arts, with Move as Graham, and Tony-winning actress and playwright Lisa Kron (Well, Fun Home) as Terry, accompanied by dancers Catherine Cabeen and Katherine Crockett. For the 2025 revival, Move, Kron, and Cabeen are reprising their roles, joined by Taiwanese dance maker PeiJu Chien-Pott, who, like Cabeen, is a former Martha Graham Dance Company member.

Move, who has collaborated with MGDC as a choreographer and performer, conceived and directed the sixty-minute production, which takes place on Gabriel Barcia-Colombo and Roberto Montenegro’s relatively spare set, centered by two chairs, a small table, and two microphones where Graham and Terry talk. Barcia-Colombo and Montenegro also designed the props the dancers use in their performance, as well as the lush, elegant costumes, immediately recognizable as part of Graham’s oeuvre. Among the other works that are brought to life are Clytemnestra, Errand into the Maze, and Appalachian Spring.

There is no video of the original interview, only audio, which you can stream here.

At the end of the interview, after bringing up comedy, Terry says, “The great characteristic of movement with Martha Graham is not only her fabulous gallery of heroines of the theater but also characteristic is the movement of one of the great dancers of all time, and I’m so glad she could be with us today. Thank you, Martha.”

To which I add, thank you, Richard Move, Lisa Kron, Catherine Cabeen, PeiJu Chien-Pott, and BAM.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

BODIES WITHOUT OUTLINES: EIKO AND WEN AT BAM

Wen Hui and Eiko Otake share personal moments involving war in moving piece at BAM (photo by Maria Baranova)

WHAT IS WAR
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
October 21-25, $55, 7:30
www.bam.org/whatiswar

“Why, eighty years after the end of the Second World War, do we still have wars?” Eiko Otake and Wen Hui’s What Is War posits.

It’s a potent question, one that the two interdisciplinary artists explore in the powerful seventy-minute presentation, continuing at BAM’s Fishman Space through October 25. There’s purposely no question mark after the title because the show does not intend to provide any answers; instead, it’s more about personal experience.

Eiko, who was born and raised in postwar Japan and has lived in New York City since 1976, and Wen, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and is based in Frankfurt, Germany, have been friends for thirty years. During the pandemic, they made the award-winning video diary No Rule Is Our Rule, after Eiko’s visit to China to collaborate with Wen was cut short.

They are now out on the road touring What Is War, which combines text, movement, and film to tell each of their stories and how they overlap. The show begins with a video clip of the two talking, projected on the large back wall. After a few minutes, Eiko humorously checks with Wen to make sure she is recording their conversation, admitting that she sometimes forgets to flip the switch and ends up having to do it all over again. It’s the last laugh of the evening.

The two women then appear at opposite sides of the black box theater, Eiko in a long, dark dress, Wen in a light blouse and long black skirt. Both barefoot, they walk agonizingly slowly toward each other across a narrow strip of dirt, a kind of graveyard where they meet in the middle, digging up the past. In front of archival footage, Wen explains how her grandmother died during the Japanese bombing of Kunming in December 1941; Wen’s mother was only five at the time. “I never had a chance to meet my grandmother,” she says. “I did not even know her name.”

Eiko Otake and Wen Hui come together and break apart in What Is War (photo by Maria Baranova)

Eiko shows a photo of her parents’ wedding, projected onto an angled hanging cloth at stage right. “They married on August 10th, 1945, one day after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and five days before Japan’s surrender,” she says, detailing how her father pretended to have tuberculosis to avoid military service. “Wen Hui, when I visited you in China and spent time with your mom, I felt really glad my father lied.”

Throughout the piece, which is dramatically lit by David A. Ferri, Eiko and Wen come together and drift apart, sometimes tenderly, sometimes with more force, as Eiko discusses the bombing of Tokyo by America, which killed one hundred thousand Japanese in six hours; Wen goes to a hospital to cheer up wounded soldiers during the Sino-Vietnamese War; Eiko points out the antiwar statements in Japan’s postwar constitution; and Eiko and Wen travel to the Lijixiang Comfort Station in Nanjing, where sex slaves were made available to the Japanese army. (Today the facade of one of the buildings is covered with contemporary photos of the women.)

At times, the performers push a horizontal mirror on wheels around the stage, which provides provocative reflections while also implicating the audience in the action.

In one of the most harrowing moments, Eiko recalls the late Japanese writer Kyoko Hayashi, who grew up in Shanghai, asking her, “Bodies I saw on August 9 had no outlines. Otake-san, when you perform, can you please think of such a body, a body without outlines?”

What Is War is a hard show to watch; Eiko and Wen pull no punches as they bare their souls and their bodies, using the past as a way to try to build a better, safer, more caring future, probably in vain if current events are any evidence. Any metaphors are in the movement itself; everything else unfolds as a bold, direct accusation of man’s seemingly never-ending thirst for battle, power, and domination.

Fortunately, each performance concludes with a catered gathering in the downstairs lounge, where Eiko and Wen are eager to speak with attendees and hear their thoughts on the work and on war, with plenty of smiles and hugs.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ONSTAGE PARTY: TILER PECK AND FRIENDS AT CITY CENTER

Tiler Peck (left) will team up with Michelle Dorrance and others for “Turn It Out” at City Center (photo by Christopher Duggan)

TURN IT OUT WITH TILER PECK & FRIENDS
New York City Center
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
October 16-19, $45-$125
www.nycitycenter.org

“I initially didn’t want to be a ballerina,” New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck tells Emma Memma in a recent Instagram post about her new children’s book, XO Ballerina Big Sis: Wisdom and Advice from the Heart (DK, October 21, $16.99). “I wanted to dance. I will say I love to dance. It’s just that I grew up in a studio where I tried all styles, and ballet was my least favorite.”

Thankfully, the Bakersfield-born Peck, who began her training at the age of two, followed her mother’s guidance and took the ballet route, entering the School of American Ballet when she was twelve and becoming an NYCB apprentice, a member of the corps de ballet, a soloist, and, in October 2009, at the age of twenty, a principal dancer. Peck has originated featured roles in such works as Kyle Abraham’s Love Letter (on shuffle), Benjamin Millepied’s Quasi una Fantasia, Angelin Preljocaj’s Spectral Evidence, and Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

During the pandemic lockdown, Peck expanded her horizons on Instagram, dancing with her father and her dog, giving lessons from her mother’s kitchen, and providing sunshine on dark days with her infectious enthusiasm.

Peck is now curating a special program running October 16-19 at New York City Center, “Turn It Out with Tiler Peck & Friends,” where she will be joined by such dancers as India Bradley, Christopher Grant, Chun Wai Chan, Byron Tittle, Lex Ishimoto, Quinn Starner, Roman Mejia, and Mira Nadon, performing William Forsythe’s The Barre Project, Blake Works II, set to music by James Blake; Peck’s Thousandth Orange, with live music by Caroline Shaw; Alonzo King’s pas de deux Swift Arrow, with music by Jason Moran; and the new commission Time Spell, a collaboration with Michelle Dorrance and Jillian Meyers, set to music by Aaron Marcellus and Penelope Wendtlandt. There will be a community talkback after the October 17 show with Peck and her friends, most likely including her new husband, Mejia.

“It’s literally like a party onstage,” Peck says in the above video, a party you won’t want to miss.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

RESTORING CHAOS: JAPAN SOCIETY CELEBRATES YUKIO MISHIMA CENTENNIAL

YUKIO MISHIMA CENTENNIAL SERIES: EMERGENCES
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
September 11 – December 6
japansociety.org

“Only art makes human beauty endure,” Yukio Mishima wrote in his 1959 novel Kyoko’s House.

In his short life — Mishima died by suicide in 1970 at the age of forty-five — the Japanese author and political activist penned approximately three dozen novels, four dozen plays, five dozen story and essay collections, ten literary adaptations, and a libretto, a ballet, and a film.

Japan Society is celebrating the hundredth year of his birth — he was born Kimitake Hiraoka in Tokyo in January 1925 — with “Yukio Mishima Centennial Series: Emergences,” comprising six events through December 6. The festival begins September 11–20 with Kinkakuji, SITI company cofounder Leon Ingulsrud and Korean American actor Major Curda’s theatrical adaptation of Mishima’s intense 1956 psychological novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, based on the true story of extreme postwar actions taken by a young Buddhist monk. Creator and director Ingulsrud cowrote the script with Curda, who stars in the play. The stage design is by Japanese visual artist Chiharu Shiota, whose international installations, featuring red and black yarn structures, include “In the Light,” “My House Is Your House,” and “Memory of Lines.” Her latest, “Two Home Countries,” runs September 12 through January 11 in the Japan Society gallery, consisting of immersive, site-specific works created in commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the end of WWII.

There are unlikely to be many empty seats at Japan Society for Kinkakuji and other Mishima events (photo © Ayako Moriyama)

There will be eleven performances of Kinkakuji, with a gallery-opening reception following the September 11 show, a separate gallery talk on September 12, a lecture preceding the September 16 show, and an artist Q&A on September 17. Each ticket comes with free same-day admission to “Two Home Countries.”

On September 27, Japan Society, as part of the John and Miyoko Davey Classics series, will screen Kon Ichikawa’s 1958 film, Conflagration, based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and starring Raizo Ichikawa, Tatsuya Nakadai, and Ganjiro Nakamura.

In conjunction with L’Alliance New York’s Crossing the Line Festival, Japan Society will present Le Tambour de Soie (The Silk Drum) on October 24 and 25, Yoshi Oida and Kaori Ito’s adaptation of Mishima’s 1957 Noh play Aya no Tsuzumi, a dance-theater piece about love and aging featuring downtown legend Paul Lazar and choreographer Ito, with music by Makoto Yabuki. The second show will be followed by an artist Q&A. On November 6, Japanese novelist and cultural ambassador Keiichiro Hirano (Nisshoku, Dawn) and Tufts University Mishima scholar Dr. Susan J. Napier will sit down for a conversation discussing Mishima’s life and legacy.

Le Tambour de Soie (The Silk Drum) will be performed October 24 and 25 at Japan Society (photo © courtesy of the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens)

On November 15 and 16, the Tokyo-based company CHAiroiPLIN brings The Seven Bridges (Hashi-zukushi) to Japan Society, a visually arresting adaptation for all ages of Mishima’s short story about four women seeking wishes during a full moon. The series concludes December 4–6 with the US debut of Hosho Noh School and Mishima’s Muse – Noh Theater, three unique programs of noh and kyogen theater comprising performances of works that inspired Mishima: Shishi (Lion Dance), Busu (Poison), Aoi no Ue (Lady Aoi), Kantan, and Yoroboshi. The December 4 performance will be followed by a ticketed soirée, and there will be an artist Q&A after the December 5 show with Kazufusa Hosho, the twentieth grand master of Hosho Noh School, which dates back to the early fifteenth century. In addition, members of Hosho Noh School lead a workshop on December 6.

“This series revitalizes Mishima’s contributions to the world of the arts through a slate of brand new commissions and premieres adapting his writings, as well as a historic US debut for a revered noh company,” Japan Society artistic director Yoko Shioya said in a statement. “This series recognizes not only Mishima’s critical legacy but the ongoing current influence of this essential postwar author on artists today.”

That legacy can be summed up in this line from his 1963 novel Gogo no Eikō (The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea): “Of course, living is merely the chaos of existence, but more than that it’s a crazy mixed-up business of dismantling existence instant by instant to the point where the original chaos is restored.”

LOVE AND JEALOUSY: SEVEN SCENES AT LITTLE ISLAND

Miriam Gittens, Doug Letheren, and Alexander Bozinoff form a trio as Mikael Darmanie plays the piano and Danni Lee Parpan watches in Seven Scenes at Little Island (photo by Matthew Placek)

SEVEN SCENES
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
August 22-28, $10 standing room, $25 seats, 8:30
littleisland.org

A pair of real-life and professional partners bring an infectious passion to Seven Scenes, a lovely hourlong work continuing at the simultaneously spacious yet cozy outdoor Amph at Little Island through August 28.

The dance theater piece was conceived, choreographed, and directed by the Iowa-born Bobbi Jene Smith and Jerusalem native Or Schraiber, who met while dancing for Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva Dance Company, became founding members of the American Modern Opera Company in 2017, got married in 2018, and have a child together. The score, ranging from classical to country, is performed live by the electro-pop duo Ringdown, consisting of real-life couple Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan on vocals, keys, and synths, accompanied by Mikael Darmanie on keyboards and electronics, Keir GoGwilt on violin, and Coleman Itzkoff on cello. Smith and Schraiber are joined by dancers Alexander Bozinoff, Jonathan Frederickson, Payton Johnson, Doug Letheren, and Ophelia Young.

Seven Scenes comprises a series of interconnected vignettes about love, jealousy, and sexual exploration. Victoria Bek’s costumes feature the men in black or gray dress pants, black or white shirts, and shiny black shoes while the women, each with long hair, wear dark, low-cut outfits. The instruments are at the Hudson River end of the bare wood stage, which remains otherwise empty save for a few moments when the cast brings out a table and chairs. Shaw, Parpan, GoGwilt, and Itzkoff occasionally wander around the dancers, singing and playing their instruments before taking seats in the first row in between audience members. Whenever someone is not performing, they are closely watching what is going on, as if they are voyeurs waiting for their moment to participate.

Payton Johnson, Miriam Gittens, and Bobbi Jean Smith line up in Seven Scenes at Little Island (photo by Matthew Placek)

The evening is highlighted by solos, pas de deux, and trios in which the performers enact primarily romantic scenarios to a score that begins with Jean-Louis Duport’s Étude No.7 and then ranges from Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, op.87: andante con moto, Bach’s Violin Sonata in E minor P. 85: I. Allegro, Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-Flat Major, D. 929: II. Andante con moto, and Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 1 (Set II) in B-Flat Major HWV 434 IV. Minuet to Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” and Ringdown’s “Hocket,” “Fantasia,” and “Thirst,” highlighted by guttural sounds.

Smith and Schraiber’s movement language is inspired by Naharin’s Gaga, focusing on the full body, from fingers to toes, interspersed with just a few runs, jumps, and throws; dancers often remain in place as they interact with one another, but the relationships are always powerfully dynamic. (You can find out more about Smith and Schraiber in the films Bobbi Jene and Aviva.) A man and a woman converge, then are interrupted by a second man, the first man interested in both of them. The three women form a line, moving in unison before breaking free.

Classical ballet and ballroom meld with contemporary dance as the men sit around a table, put on and take off jackets, and one of the men stretches across the table. The men later form a row before sitting in chairs, evoking Naharin’s Minus 16 and Jerome Robbins’s bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof. Individuals fall to the floor and remain there, as if having been rejected, or exhausted by the chase. Johnson excels in a solo to “Thirst” as Ringdown sings, “Clenched jaw and furrowed brow / If you are the rain, then I am the ground / Don’t know what to do with this thirst for a time and place where I found you first / Where I found you first.”

The men shake hands with audience members. Near the end, Fredrickson thrills with a yearning solo to Darmanie’s gorgeous piano.

There’s a beautiful intimacy to Seven Scenes and how it tells its stories, weaving in sound and motion, dancers and musicians, both physically and emotionally, as bodies come together and are ripped apart, all under a glowing night sky.

Following select performances, the audience is invited to the nearby Glade for a free concert at 10:00, with GoGwilt and pianist Conor Hanick on August 27 and pianist Jeremy Denk on August 28.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

LEGACY, MEMORY, AND IMPERMANENCE: CELEBRATING MEREDITH MONK AT IFC

Meredith Monk looks at her past, present, and future in Billy Shebar’s celebratory and deeply affecting documentary

MONK IN PIECES: A CONCEPT ALBUM (Billy Shebar, 2025)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
July 24–31
www.ifccenter.com
monkinpieces.com

Near the beginning of Billy Shebar’s revelatory documentary, Monk in Pieces, composer Philip Glass explains that Meredith Monk “was a self-contained theater company. She, amongst all of us, I think, was the uniquely gifted one — is the uniquely gifted one.” It’s an important correction because Monk, at eighty-three, is still hard at work, creating live performances and films that defy categorization.

While several of her earliest projects were met with derision in critical circles, today she is revered for her remarkable output, although it is still impossible to put her into any kind of box. At one point in the documentary, a chorus of Monk scholars sings her praises; one says, “She’s achieved so much, has received so many accolades, and yet she’s this unknown,” a second notes, “She kind of falls through the cracks of music history,” and a third admits, “We don’t know how to talk about her.”

Written, directed, and produced by Shebar — whose wife, coproducer Katie Geissinger, has been performing with Monk since 1990 — and David Roberts, Monk in Pieces does a wonderful job of righting those wrongs, celebrating her artistic legacy while she shares private elements of her personal and professional life. Born and raised in Manhattan, Monk details her vision problem, known as strabismus, in which she is unable to see out of both eyes simultaneously in three dimensions, which led her to concentrate on vocals and the movement of her physical self. She studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics: “All musical ideas come from the body; I think that’s where I’m coming from,” she says. All these decades later, her distinctive choreography and wordless tunes are still like nothing anyone else does.

Meredith Monk shares a special moment with her beloved turtle, Neutron

Unfolding at a Monk-like unhurried pace, the ninety-five-minute documentary is divided into thematic chapters based on her songs, including “Dolmen Music,” “Double Fiesta,” “Memory Song,” “Turtle Dreams,” and “Teeth Song,” while exploring such presentations as Juice (1969), the first theatrical event to be held at the Guggenheim; Education of the Girlchild (1973), in which a woman ages in reverse; Quarry (1976), a three-part opera about an American child sick in bed during WWII; Impermanence (2006), inspired by the sudden death of her partner, Mieke von Hook; and her masterwork, Atlas (1991), in which the Houston Grand Opera worries about her numerous requests and production costs, whether the piece will be ready in time, and if it even can be considered opera. There are also clips from Ellis Island, Book of Days, Facing North, and Indra’s Net, her latest show, which was staged at Park Ave. Armory last fall. In addition, Monk reads from her journals in scenes with playful animation by Paul Barritt.

Monk opened up her archives for the filmmakers, so Shebar, Roberts, and editor Sabine Krayenbühl incorporate marvelous photos and video from throughout Monk’s career, along with old and new interviews. “It was her voice that was so extraordinary, not only the different kind of sounds she could make, but the imagination she was using in producing the sound . . . totally individual,” Merce Cunningham says. WNYC New Sounds host John Schaefer gushes, “I don’t know when words like multimedia and interdisciplinary began to become in vogue, but Meredith was all of those things.” Her longtime friend and collaborator Ping Chong offers, “She had to fight to be acknowledged in the performing arts world because critics were saying that what she was doing was nonsensical, was crazy, was not serious; in a way, it’s a fight to survive. Pain is where art comes from. . . . Art has to come out of need. And now she’s an old master.”

And Björk, who recorded Monk’s “Gotham Lullaby,” touts, “Meredith’s melody making is like a timeless door that’s opened, like a gateway to the ancient is found. It definitely affected my DNA. . . . Her loft that she has lived in for half a century is an oasis in a toxic environment.” Among the other collaborators who chime in are longtime company member Lanny Harrison; composer Julia Wolfe; and David Byrne, for whom she created the opening scene of his 1986 film, True Stories, and who says he learned from Monk that “you can do things without words and it still has meaning, it still has an emotional connection.”

Some of the most beautiful moments of the film transpire in Monk’s loft, where she tends to her beloved forty-two-year-old turtle named Neutron, puts stuffed animals on her bed, meditates while staring at windows lined with Tibetan prayer flags, composes a new song, looks into a mirror as she braids her trademark pigtails, and sits at her small kitchen table, eating by herself. Surrounded by plants and personal photographs, she moves about slowly, profoundly alone, comfortable in who she is and what she has accomplished, contemplating what comes next.

“What happens when I’m not here anymore?” Monk, who received the 2014 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, asks while working with director Yuval Sharon, conductor Francisco J. Núñez, and performer Joanna Lynn Jacobs on a remounting of Atlas for the LA Philharmonic in 2019. “It’s very rare that anybody gets it.”

Monk in Pieces goes a long way toward rectifying that, filling in the cracks, helping define her place in music history.

Monk in Pieces runs July 24-31 at IFC Center; there will be Q&As following the 6:45 screenings on July 24 with Monk, Shebar, and producer Susan Margolin, moderated by Schaefer; on July 25 with Monk, Shebar, and Margolin, moderated by violist Nadia Sirota; and on July 26 with Shebar.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HIDDEN GEMS: BED-STUY STooPS SUMMER FESTIVAL

STooPS 2025 SUMMER FESTIVAL
Stuyvesant Ave. & Decatur St., Brooklyn
Saturday, July 26, free (advance registration recommended), 1:00 – 7:00
www.stoopsbedstuy.org
www.eventbrite.com

The twelfth annual STooPS Arts Crawl and Block Party takes place on July 26 on Decatur St. between Lewis and Stuyvesant Aves. in Brooklyn, with live music and dance, workshops, and visual art on the stoops and shared spaces of Bedford–Stuyvesant. This year’s theme is “Echoes of Greatness: Celebrating Bed-Stuy’s Hidden Gems,” honoring the lesser-known treasures in the neighborhood. The festivities begin at 1:00 with a block party lasting until 7:00, hosted by Koku with ToniBNYC, a Kiddie Korner by Bridges: A Pan-Afrikan Arts Movement, collaborative visual art by Ovila Lemon/Mut’Sun, and healing workshops by Akika Flower Essences & Apothecary and Essence of Ase. There will be art crawls at 1:30 and 4:00, led by Shanna Sabio of GrowHouse NYC, with Carmen Carriker, Courtney Cook, Ariana Carthan/Wukkout!, Brooklyn Ballet, Qu33n Louise, Nia Blue, and Púyaloahí. Kendra J. Ross Works and Soul Science Lab headline the show. This year’s awardees are Ovila Lemon, Richard Cummings, Valerie Ferguson, Monique Scott, Larry Weekes, and Damon Bolden.

“The summer festival is more than a celebration — it’s a bridge between Bed-Stuy’s past and its future,” STooPS founding director Kendra J. Ross said in a statement. “By bringing art to the stoops, we make space for neighbors to connect across generations and experiences. In a time of change, this is how we honor what’s been while shaping what’s next — together.”

All events are free but advance registration is recommended.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]